Secret of the Shadows (10 page)

Another dream?

No.

She’d been here. I was getting too close to the truth about her, and she wanted to stop me.

Well, I was not going to let her.

I was going to get her first.

Chapter 25

The final day

I sat the rest of that night in the safety of Gran’s room just watching my aunt. I could not let her spend another night in this house. I had to get her out of here and tell the world about Sister Kelly. I had to make someone believe me. I had to make someone listen. Aunt Belle stirred in her sleep. She began to mutter. I crossed to her bed, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then her eyes opened. She smiled, but not at me. She was looking at some point behind me. I swung round, terrified. I was so afraid it was
her,
that she’d found her way into this room. But there was nothing there.

Aunt Belle closed her eyes and was soon asleep again. I felt her brow. It was cool to the touch, but beads of cold sweat pearled there. She was getting worse. I made a decision. I would call the doctor. I wanted her in a hospital. She would be safer there. At least till Steven came home. I would sleep on a chair by her bed in the hospital if I had to. But I had to get Aunt Belle out of here.

I started calling our surgery back home at eight o’clock, ringing every five minutes until finally my call was answered. The receptionist was full of sympathy, that is until I gave her our address. A coldness came into her voice then. ‘The doctor couldn’t come all the way down there. Why don’t you call a local doctor?’

‘I don’t know any local doctors,’ I said.

‘Phone NHS Direct. They’ll advise you,’ she said. ‘They’re very helpful.’

I felt deflated when I came off the phone.

I was still standing in the hallway with the phone in my hand when the doorbell rang, shrill through the house.

It was the policeman who’d come to visit us before, Sergeant Ross. He stood there at the front door smiling, his big frame blocking the sun.

‘Just thought I’d pop in to see how things are going. How’s your arm?’

He was looking at the plaster I had there. I’d almost forgotten it. I waved his question away. ‘It was nothing.’ But I couldn’t hide my relief at seeing him. ‘I’m trying to get a doctor for my aunt.’

He stepped inside the door. ‘A doctor? What’s wrong with her?’

I wanted to tell him clearly and succinctly, without sounding like a drama queen. ‘We both thought it was jet lag, but she’s getting worse. She needs to see a doctor.’ Once I started, it all came tumbling out. I couldn’t stop myself. And, I was thinking, surely a policeman was the right person to tell? He would have to listen, wouldn’t he?

‘I have to get her out of this house. And I have information about the woman who used to live here, that Sister Kelly? She was a mass murderess.’

I told him all I’d found out about Sister Kelly. I even ran into the front room and brought back the book and the photograph. I could see he was listening carefully, taking it all in.

His expression didn’t change. His face was like granite. ‘And you found out all this in this book?’ he asked.

I nodded my head. ‘And on the internet. There’s loads of stuff there too.’ I wanted so much to convince him. Why couldn’t I just keep my mouth shut? Because then I really blew it.

‘And she’s still here, haunting this house. She’s the one making my aunt ill.’

His lips pursed, then his eyes creased in a smile. ‘Ah, wait a minute, you’re the lass that makes up the stories.’

‘I’m not making this up. Sister Kelly is here!’ I snapped at him, and his smile, what little there was of it, disappeared.

‘I think you and your aunt
should
leave this house if you’re having nightmares.’

‘She needs to see a doctor,’ I insisted.

‘Ah well, there I can help you.’ He took a notebook from his top pocket and began to write down a name. ‘Local doctor. Doctor Gordon. Give him a buzz. Tell him Sergeant Ross gave you his name.’

He handed me the piece of paper. ‘Will you pass on the information about Sister Kelly?’

He hesitated, looked out over the river. There was a windsurfer already there on the water. ‘Based on an old photograph and stuff you read in a book? No. I will not,’ he said at last. ‘You should keep your stories for your notebooks.’

‘This isn’t a story. This is the truth.’ But I knew then I couldn’t convince him.

‘You call the doctor for your auntie. I’ll stop by tomorrow.’ He turned and began to walk back to his car. I almost called out to him again. To force him to listen. But then I remembered.

I was the girl who was convinced I had seen my teacher, the teacher who had been dead for six months. I’d been laughed at, ridiculed, when I had tried to convince everyone at my last school about that. I had ended up being expelled. So how could I expect anyone to believe me now? I was just a girl, a girl with a history of telling stories.

It was obvious now that I had lost any trust Sergeant Ross might have had in me. No one was going to believe me about Sister Kelly.

Aunt Belle called out to me, her voice weak, ‘Who was that?’

I went into her room, told her the sergeant had just been.

‘Ooh, that big handsome sergeant?’

‘Yeah. You’d better hurry up and get better, Aunt Belle. He might ask you for a date.’

And then she said something that floored me. Really scared me. ‘I think it’s too late for that, Tyler.’

I clutched at her hand. ‘Too late for what?’

‘If I tell you something, you won’t be afraid, will you? Because I’m not.’

I was already afraid, but I said nothing.

‘When our mother was dying, that would be your great-grandmother, Tyler,’ Aunt Belle went on, ‘she said she saw her mother standing in the corner, her father too. They’d come to lead her to heaven, that’s what she kept saying.’ Her voice weakened. I had to lean close to hear her. ‘We thought she had dementia, didn’t know what she was saying. But you know, later, after she died, your gran and I thought that maybe she
had
seen them. It was her time to die, and they knew it and they didn’t want her to be afraid. They wanted to lead her on to the next world. And she wasn’t afraid, Tyler.’

I held my breath, because I was sure I knew what was coming next. ‘I think now is my time, Tyler.’ Her eyes moved to the corner of the room, and she smiled at someone she saw standing there. I swung round again and there was nothing, but now I knew who it was she saw there. ‘Your gran’s come for me, Tyler, and I’m not afraid.’

Chapter 26

I tried to tell myself she was raving. She had a fever; she was delirious. I felt like crying. I was completely alone. I couldn’t handle all this by myself, but there was no one else, and now . . . I was certain my aunt was dying.

I would not cry. There was no time to feel sorry for myself. I lifted the phone and punched in the number Sergeant Ross had given me. It was busy.

I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice and opened the patio doors. I looked along the beach at the surf roaring in. There were people walking along the shore, the warm wind blowing through their hair, filling their clothes. There was a family setting up for a day at the seaside, laying a tartan blanket on the rocks, unpacking their car as their children ran and laughed and played in the water. Free.

And I was trapped here. I couldn’t leave Aunt Belle now, not for a moment.

I tried to call Paul Forbes. I needed to talk to someone. His phone didn’t even ring.
NUMBER NOT IN USE
, came up on the screen. Not in use? And he had told me to call him anytime, day or night? I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so close to tears. I tried again, just in case it was a mistake, but again got the same message.
NUMBER NOT IN USE.

And there in the kitchen I did cry, couldn’t stop myself.

I didn’t want to stay here for another night. The thought terrified me. If I could get Aunt Belle into the hospital, I could stay the night there with her. I’d sleep on the floor, in the foyer, anywhere. I’d refuse to leave.

Gran had kept me here for a purpose, to find out about Sister Kelly. I had done that. At that moment all I knew was that I could not stay another night in this house.

It was Aunt Belle calling out to me that brought me back. ‘I’m coming,’ I called and I splashed my face with water and pulled myself together.

She needed help to get to the toilet and as I took her arm I felt how weak she’d become. In just a few days, my robust, funny aunt was weak and shaky.

Don’t die on me, Aunt Belle
, I prayed.
Not you too
.

After I got her back into bed, I tried the doctor again. The number was still busy. Then I went into the bedroom and sat with Aunt Belle and watched the gulls flying over the water.

I even tried calling Steven, but his mobile was switched off.

At midday, I tried the doctor again, and this time my call was answered.

I was so excited I babbled the whole thing out. But as soon as I mentioned that we were here on holiday and Doctor Gordon wasn’t my doctor, I heard the ice form in the receptionist’s voice.

‘Doctor Gordon is very busy . . .’

‘Oh, please, my aunt’s not well, and we’re all alone here. I don’t know what to do.’

She softened. ‘If you call back after three, you can talk to the doctor personally. OK?’

‘You promise you won’t forget?’

Wrong thing to say. She froze again. ‘If I say I’ll tell the doctor, I’ll tell the doctor.’

She’d rung off before I could apologise. I checked my watch. 1.20. Not too long to wait, and then, I’d ask the doctor to come. I’d make him come. I’d tell him I thought she was dying. And once I was out of this house, I would make someone listen. I would expose Sister Kelly, whatever it took.

I went back into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich for lunch. I got some bread, some cheese from the fridge, and I pulled open the drawer and lifted out a knife when something caught my eye. Crawling along the worktop was a spider. A huge spider. I gazed at it, mesmerised . . .

And the drawer slammed shut on my fingers.

The pain was so agonising I couldn’t even yell. I stepped back, felt myself go faint, and then the kitchen door closed.

My fingers blazed with pain. I knew I had to get out of here. I stumbled to the door and tried to pull it open. It wouldn’t budge. As if someone on the other side was holding it shut.

The doors to the garden still lay open. I could get out that way. I flew towards them, but I wasn’t quick enough. They slammed shut too.

Clouds covered the sun. The room grew dark.

She was here.

‘Leave us be!’ I yelled it out, trying desperately to pull at the kitchen door. I was locked in.

The shelf on the wall above me trembled. I stepped back but I wasn’t fast enough. The shelf broke loose, pots and pans, everything, came crashing down on top of me. I tried to protect myself, folding my arms above my head. I let out a yell of pain as a cast-iron oven dish landed on my bruised fingers and I slipped on the tiled floor.

My head cracked against the wall. Above me on the edge of the worktop I saw the sharp blade of the knife. I held up my arm again.

‘No!’ I yelled.

Chapter 27

I lifted my arm and saw blood trickling down. I was lying on the floor, must have fainted.

There was a movement in the hall. Something outside the door. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look.

The door opened. I heard soft footsteps. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Paul Forbes crouching over me, looking concerned.

I sat up. The kitchen was tidy again. Where was the broken shelf? The tumbled pots and pans? There was no chaos in the kitchen. The patio doors lay open, the curtains fluttered at the open window, the fresh smell of the sea blowing in. I tried to stand up.

‘The shelf fell down,’ I said.

Paul followed my gaze. The shelf was steady, piled with pots and pans and dishes.

‘The knife . . .’ I muttered. The knife was on the floor.

‘That’s a nasty cut.’

My arm
was
bleeding. At least that was some proof. ‘I didn’t do this.
She
did it. She locked me in here.’

But I could see in his eyes he doubted me. Even Paul, who had experienced so much in this house, doubted what I was saying.

‘It happened. You know it happened. You know what she can do.’

I remembered then he knew nothing of what I had found out. Nothing of how evil Sister Kelly really was. As he helped me to my feet, I tried to tell him everything I had discovered.

Paul wrapped a kitchen towel round my arm. ‘I think you might need stitches,’ he said.

I clutched at him. ‘You have to believe me, Paul. I’ve found out who she really is, and she doesn’t want me to tell anyone. She’s trying to stop me.’ I dragged him into the living room. ‘I’ll show you. Read this book.’ I pushed the book into his hands. ‘Chapter ten. Read Chapter ten. “The Missing Murderess”.’